By 
Crossing The Simpson With a buffoon
Nick Fletcher and Rupert Shaw – the same Rupert Shaw who organises the Adventure Travel Film Festival – rode their bikes across the Simpson Desert. Rupert says they proved anyone can ride the French Line. Nick thinks they demonstrated that although anyone can, not everyone should.
The author experiencing sense-of-humour failure somewhere in The Simpson.
The genesis of our Simpson trip started in one of Melbourne’s more pretentious coffee shops where I was meeting fellow Pom Rupert Shaw to plan a mini adventure. Rupert had brought a map of Australia and an ambition that far exceeded our abilities.
What could be done in a week off work, on two bikes that were only slightly better than Scrapheap Challenge entries, and by two motorcyclists without any riding skill or mechanical aptitude? Darwin was too far, Adelaide too dull and Sydney was full of bankers on GSs
But the big red bit in the middle looked interesting, so Alice Springs it was, and since we were going there, Rupert thought we might as well try and ride across the big sandy bit just to the south.
The Birdsville Track.
With our entire planning for the trip done it was back to the decaf soy lattes.
I should at this point highlight the critical elements we wished we had known before we left
• If you’re going to ride 3000km across some of Australia’s sandiest tracks, you should probably practice before you set off, and
• It’s difficult to get two sheep in a back-pack without the use of duct tape.
Op-shop chic
We met at Melbourne’s Southbank.
Rupert is a master of unpreparedness. He prides himself on working out the essential planning required for a trip and then doing just a little bit less. He arrived late, dressed like he’d just held up an op shop and without any fuel or oil in his bike. He abandoned his filthy TTR on the footpath – where it leaked the last of its oil – and dived into a very upmarket BMW dealership to get his paraffin wax (or whatever Yamaha specified instead of 10W40 for the sump of his Japanese Ladies’ Bike).
The BMW staff couldn’t get him out of the dealership fast enough.
A good start
After a short highway run out of the city we were into some interesting riding. The good news was that since Rupert had converted his TTR from 250cc to 320cc it could now almost reach three-figure speeds, although it seemed to leak one or two litres of oil every 100km or so.
Surprisingly, the first couple of days riding turned out to be some of the best of the trip. The Werribee Gorge was fabulous, the sand tracks of the Grampians were magic and we even found some outstanding grass farm tracks to join it all together.
How had we missed this great riding on our doorstep?
Smells like goat
As we dropped into the Wimmera and Little Desert National Park things started to get a bit sandy. Rupert had years of desert-riding experience but I had almost none. Indeed, my entire sand-riding experience was made up of the Army Basic Motorcycle Course I attended 20 years ago.
In my view you have to be either skilled or stupid to ride well on sand. I certainly wasn’t skilled. With the fully loaded bikes we really needed to be doing 60kph to get them to float over the soft sand. Rupert could afford to go a little slower as he had a slightly lighter bike and wasn’t encumbered by non-essentials like food or water – what a clown.
Fortunately, the relatively straight roads of Little Desert made it relatively simple to keep the bikes at speed.
We skirted Lake Hindmarsh on some brilliant sandy trails that headed towards Lake Albacutya where things got a bit tricky. The track I’d picked was twisty and really deep, soft sand. Within 10km we were both a sweaty mess. I’d dropped the bike a number of times and found the going was so soft I could just stop and climb off with the bike remaining upright in the sand. We weren’t to know it, but this was probably the most technically difficult riding we would face on the entire trip.
With the low-speed riding and the power-sapping sand the bikes were getting really hot and I eventually had to stop to let mine cool down. At one point I pulled up next to Rupert and I could smell the most appalling stench. I offered, “Can you smell the goats? That is absolutely rank”. He replied “No. That’s my bike. I peed on it to try and cool it down.”
Biker Tramp lived up to his name.
Don’t ask.
The party line
We eventually found a way on to more sensible tracks and with a beautiful setting sun started a run towards Mildura on tarmac.
In the end we stopped for the night at the pub in Lascelles and there was a 21st birthday party on.
Result!
Topping up the oil on the TTR.
The worst
motorcycle in the worldWe left Lascelles with beautiful blue skies and a five-degree temperature for a tarmac ride to Mildura and breakfast.
The breakfast stop highlighted the scale of the oil leak on The Japanese Ladies’ Bike.
It was the Exxon Valdez of the motorcycle world, made additionally frustrating as the TTR required a 24-piece socket set just to top up the oil.
I should say that this particular bike does have some history. Rupert is the sort of masochist who thinks it’s a smart idea to put a 100kg ape, 40kg of fuel and 25kg of luggage on a 1970s 250cc, air-cooled trailbike with 15bhp. However, even he had to admit it was a little bit slow on last year’s APC Rally. Rather than doing the smart thing and sending the bike to the wreckers, he decided to bore the cylinder. To be fair, the additional 70cc has made a real difference. It’s gone from an object of ridicule to one of mild contempt. It’ll now do 100kph easily, but struggles in sand.
It does have the advantage of being light and simple – it’s owner is only one of these.
Anyway, the aluminium outer-cylinder thing with the fins on (that’s the technical term) must’ve cracked slightly when it was bored.
Now when the Ladies Bike got hot, oil forced between the new barrel and outer-cylinder thing and it leaked like Edward Snowden.
Despite trying every type of instant gasket we could find during the trip we never managed to fix the leak.
D’oh.
Killer emu
Mildura to Broken Hill was straightforward.
We found some fast gravel and sand tracks, which on the whole were fine.
Not being an Australian native, the wild-life remains fascinating to me. I still point at kangaroos, and emus are things of wonder.
I thought emus were particularly amusing, but this sense of reverence evaporated as I recognised these animals were homicidal meat-missiles intent on my destruction.
This realisation dawned when I saw an emu about 25 metres ahead. It was a massive animal like a chest freezer on legs. As it looked at me it was hopping from one leg to the other in some sort of emu warm-up routine.
I’m sure if it’d had arms it would’ve been tying a white bandana around its head. It looked at me and I looked at it and it launched itself across the road in a weirdly deceptive slow-motion emu run. I didn’t have time to do anything other than brace for impact.
The bloody thing must have passed a metre in front of my wheel and its feathers brushed my handguard.
From then on they were like a feathered plague of motorbike assassins. I hate the bloody things.
Despite the emu assaults we arrived in Broken Hill for an early finish, and even had time to change the air filters and bolt all the loose bits back on to Rupert’s bike.
I kissed a sheep and liked it
Broken Hill to Cameron Corner turned into a really long day, principally because of a GPS cockup on my behalf. And also Rupert had his ‘thing’ with the sheep – which I’ve sworn never to mention.
Nevertheless, we had some good riding that included unmarked riverbeds, fast sandy tracks, vast gibber plains and lots of killer emus and kangaroos.
The comedy moment was riding over some fencing wire that wrapped around my left leg and the back wheel at the same time. This instantly locked up the wheel and hog-tied my left leg hard against the frame. I had to balance on the bike until Rupert turned up and cut me free.
We arrived at Cameron Corner at 6:30pm with my bike running out of fuel 25 metres from the pub.
On a Vespa
We camped outside the Cameron Corner pub that night, and the following morning we filled everything that would hold liquid with fuel and set off for Birdsville. The countryside was mind-blowing with the blue skies, red earth, huge gas plants and vast horizons I’d only seen on a Qantas ad. The find of the day was the Walkers Crossing Track. It was 100km of firm, twisty, bermed sand. Even Rupert was inspired to get into third gear and ride like Toby Price – if Toby was out of practice and riding a Vespa with panniers.
Pep talk
We rolled into Birdsville about 4:30pm on Tuesday to find the place mobbed, despite the races not being until the following week-end. We grabbed a spot in the campsite and changed the oil on the bikes. Rupert also decided to switch to a larger rear sprocket ‘for the dunes’ – because we clearly needed an even slower TTR.
A young lad wandered over to say he’d just arrived after crossing The Simpson on his own and it had been ‘a f%#ing nightmare’.
Apparently, he’d dropped the bike about 100 times, had to carry his panniers up the dunes, ran out of food and water and had taken four days.
We thanked him for the words of encouragement.
Soft landings
After the best breakfast and coffee of the trip at the Birdsville bakery we were on our way to Big Red and The Simpson crossing.
Everything I’d read said an unsupported Simpson crossing was a very tough couple of days on a bike. From the map I could see Birdsville to Mt Dare was about 560km, but I wasn’t sure how much of this was true, soft-sand riding.
Big Red is about 40km out of Birdsville and reached by a very well-made road.
It’s allegedly the biggest and baddest of all the dunes in The Simpson, so it was an intimidating start to the day. To make matters worse, both bikes were the heaviest they would be for the ride, with 42 litres of fuel and 13 litres of water on top of our camping gear, spares and food. However, Big Red felt a bit like a theme park with a large car park at the bottom and everyone and their dog giving it a go with a range of completely unsuitable vehicles.
Rupert tried first on his completely unsuitable vehicle, and I loudly celebrated as he ran out of steam halfway up and dropped the bike. It got even better when he dropped the bike in the car park turning it around for run number two – what an arse.
With an awesome 16bhp on tap he ended up paddling over the top.
I was up next and found it relatively straightforward with the DRZ’s additional power.
As we were soon to learn, Big Red may be the highest, but it certainly isn’t the hardest dune in The Simpson.
Rupert did some practice for an appearance in Fred Brophy’s boxing tent.
Another result
Then we were into it.
It was: climb a big dune, pop over the top, try to hold it together on the horrific, chopped-up descent, have a 250-metre break on the salt pan between the dunes and repeat. No individual dune was that hard, but the cumulative effect was traumatic. I dropped it a couple of times as I went over the top of the dune and misjudged the surprise turn in the soft sand. Picking up the bike in the sand with all the kit on it was hideous. It was just at the limit of what I could do. Each time I was draped over the bike for two minutes just trying to let my heart rate get back to something close to normal.
There were also those really special moments where, having used every ounce of strength to get the bloody thing upright, I’d then drop it again getting back on.
About 80km into the sand Rupert saw what appeared to be a warm, flat, half-drunk two-litre bottle of Coke on the track. Being a biker tramp he stopped to pick it up and it turned out to be a cold, fizzy, half-drunk bottle of Coke.
Result!
The Adelaide 4WD club were impressed by Rupert’s improvised bike stand.
Rupert strikes a pose on the Walker Crossing Track. It was one of the best rides of the whole trip.
Nut job
After Poeppel Corner and 100km of sand we turned on to the infamous French Line and the nature of the track changed.
The dunes were smaller and the sand softer.
There was also now no longer easy riding between the dunes. Rupert started this section by getting bogged just near the top of a dune. I was following close behind and had to stop halfway up to avoid him. He was struggling to turn the bike around so I hopped off to help. He took another run at it and got up no problem. I, however, was stuck halfway up. He kept riding. What an utter twatt!
A few kilometres later I completely bogged the bike. I was a sand novice so I kept the throttle pinned, hoping it would climb out.
It didn’t. I was in one of those classic positions with the back wheel completely buried up to the panniers. Getting it unstuck was a huge drama that required stripping the luggage off the bike and trying to wrestle and lift the bike out of the sand. It took about 30 minutes and there was no sign of my off-sider.
I had some dark thoughts about Rupert.
I was also impressed by the four-wheel drive crew that came past waving happily. Apparently they went on and met Rupert, telling him “everything was fine” and I was just “adjusting my kit”. I was looking forward to seeing their Patrol on its roof in flames so I could tell their mates, “Yep, all fine. Looks like they were firing up the barbie.”
As I eventually got the bike over the hill and all the kit back on, Rupert reappeared, wanting to know what the hell I’d been up to. There was a frank and open exchange of points of view.
At this point I noticed my back wheel was loose. In fact, the nut was almost completely undone! God alone knows how that had happened, but given I’d put the wheel on in the first place, I was pretty sure I knew which clown was to blame.
I had to unpack again to get my tools out and wrench the wheel back on.
Rupert thought a pic on the Alice Springs sign would be good…except he couldn’t quite get up there.
Pricks
The lowlight of the day came as I tired in the afternoon.
There had been a lot of traffic from west to east and it’d completely destroyed the western faces of the dunes. We spoke to one guy who’d been across The Simpson five times and said it was the worst he’d ever seen it.
The consequence was that, as you came down the dune, there were huge, soft, sandy, chopped-up whoops that were extremely difficult to ride. The secret was to keep the power on over the top and accelerate down the dune, but this is harder than it sounds.
I shot over the top of a dune to discover it dropping away much quicker than I expected. The bike was airborne and then landed and bounced me off the track. I accelerated through the scrub completely out of control and ended up hitting a big ter-mite mound that launched me into what freestylers would call a ‘Ruler’; that is to say, the bike was in the air and I was upside down holding the ’bars with my feet pointing to the sky.
As the bike hit the ground I smashed back into the saddle. Fortunately my testicles broke my fall.
By the end of the day Rupert and I were both buggered. We’d had enough by about 4:30pm and set up camp. I immediately discovered that the desert is full of sharp, spikey things, and punctured my air mattress in two places.
Dalhousie Springs. Warm-water heaven for riders.
Double dare
We were both tired and sore getting on the bikes the following morning. On the upside we only had about 100km of true desert riding left. Rupert and I took turns ‘resting’ under our bikes and then battling to lift the bloody things.
The riding was becoming exhausting and my lack of sand-riding experience was really starting to show. My wrists and forearms were so sore I couldn’t ride for more than 15 minutes without a rest. I was definitely more tired than Rupert who is like his bike – slow but unkillable.
Furthermore, he tried to convince me his 1000cc, 1980s BMW Dakar replica would be a better bike to do the ride on.
Right! What I really needed was another 80kg of motorcycle.
About mid afternoon we knew we were finally out of the difficult part because two very amiable rangers had set up camp beside the track to check desert permits. Although the Simpson is mind-blowing it was great to finally get off the dunes proper.
It was at this point that Rupert decided to have a puncture. Fortunately the entire membership of the Adelaide 4WD owners’ club was on hand to help out.
The real treat of the whole ride was Dalhousie Springs. This is a small lake naturally heated to the temperature of the average bath. We couldn’t get undressed fast enough.
We then had a short run to Mt Dare over a road apparently made entirely from 15cm boulders, which was just what my wrists needed. Fortunately Rupert gave me a 40-minute rest with another puncture.
Mt Dare Hotel was a very welcome sight and we opted for the ‘luxury couples cabin with ensuite bathroom’.
Alice at last
The run from Mt Dare to Alice Springs was an education for me.
We were following the route of the Finke Desert Race, and besides learning that the Finke township is a sad and depressing place, I also worked out that anyone who finishes the Finke is a legend. We rode along the Old Ghan Railway alignment, a
beautifully made, compacted-sand road that runs within six metres of the entire Finke course. It was 240km of unending sandy whoops interspersed with rocky washouts and the occasional burnt-out car. Three hours of looking at the course while we rode along a lovely track brought home just how far and how hard that course is.
Rupert, a man of very little imagination, suggested that it ‘looked good’ for his 1000cc BMW. That should give crash fans something to look forward to in the 2015 event.
It was with a mixture and relief and sadness that we pulled into Alice. Rupert insisted on a photo of him on top of the Alice Springs town sign. Of course, his attempt to mount it failed.
Buffoon kept riding across Australia
Postscript
The plan had always been to fly home from Alice and get the bikes shipped back. That’s what I did. Rupert, however, decided he quite liked riding around Australia at 75kph. So rather like Forrest Gump, he just kept going and only stopped when he got to Perth.
From Perth he turned around and rode across the Nullabor back to Melbourne. True to character he returned having along the way purchased four non-running, 1970s, air-cooled Japanese trials bikes, a woollen onesy and a unicycle (you really couldn’t make this stuff up).
Salt Pans on The Simpson
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